This invention relates to a stabilized fuel slurry composition comprising a fuel oil and pulverized coal.
Pulverized coal has certain disadvantages which limit the use thereof as fuel, such as difficulty in transportation and storage, low heat value, difficulty in combustion-control and the like. Mixtures of pulverized coal with fuel oils generally known as coal-oil mixture (hereinafter referred to as "COM") may eliminate these disadvantages and are valueable as fuel because their costs per unit heat value are cheaper than any fuel oil alone.
However, coal particles in a slurry produced by simply mixing pulverized coal into a fuel oil tend to sediment from the slurry upon storage so that the slurry loses its fluidity entirely.
A great number of additives were tested to stabilize and prevent the slurry from being separated into its component upon storage. The basic requirements for such additives include that they are relatively cheap and effective at a small concentration for a long period of time when added into COM.
The stabilizer used herein complies with these basic requirements.